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Pope Francis Urges Christians to Overcome Fear of Migrants

Pope Francis focused his homily on Friday on urging the faithful to resist “the wickedness and ugliness of our time” by not giving in to fears of migrants and refugees.

In these difficult times, we are tempted to “close ourselves in ourselves, in our fragile human security, in the circle of our loved ones, in our reassuring routine,” the pope said. But this withdrawal into ourselves is a “sign of defeat” that “increases our fear of others --- strangers, the marginalized, foreigners — who are also the Lord’s privileged ones.”

“This is particularly evident today, in the face of the arrival of migrants and refugees who knock on our door in search of protection, security, and a better future,” Francis said.

The pope spoke these words at a Mass at the Fraterna Domus center outside Rome “in order to highlight his constant attention to the welcome of migrants,” Vatican News stated.

Francis celebrated the Mass to kick off a three-day meeting titled “Free from Fear,” organized by the Migrantes Foundation, Italian Caritas, and the Jesuit-run Astalli Center for Refugees, to discuss reception structures for migrants.

Throughout his six-year pontificate, Pope Francis has insisted that immigration and the care of migrants are primary concerns for Christians and should not be considered a second-tier issue."

https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2019/02/16/pope-francis-urges-christians-overcome-fear-migrants/

Breitbart is one of the few News outlets that will even touch this subject.

Pope Francis Calls Clerical Sex Abuse an ‘Urgent’ Challenge for the Church

ROME -- Pope Francis has asked Catholics to pray for an

upcoming Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, saying he

intended to convoke the meeting as an act of “forceful pastoral responsibility.”

“From next Thursday to Sunday, there will take place in the Vatican a meeting with the presidents of all the bishops’ conferences on the matter of the protection of minors in the Church,” the pope told the crowds gathered in Saint Peter’s Square Sunday for his weekly Angelus prayer. “I invite prayers for this appointment that I have wished as an act of forceful pastoral responsibility in the face of an urgent challenge in our time.”

On Saturday, the Vatican announced that former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick would be laicized after being found guilty of serial homosexual abuse.

According to a Vatican statement, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) had found Theodore McCarrick guilty of “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.”

The decree imposed upon McCarrick “the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state,” the statement said.

Despite the expedited laicization of McCarrick, the question remains why Francis failed to act sooner, especially if --- as has been alleged — he knew of McCarrick’s crimes as early as 2013.

https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2019/02/17/pope-francis-calls-clerical-sex-abuse-an-urgent-challenge-for-the-church/

Report: Pope Knew of McCarrick’s Crimes but Considered Them Unimportant

French author Frédéric Martel alleges in a new book that Pope Francis had been informed that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had been having sexual relations with seminarians and priests but considered this fact “insufficient to condemn him.”

Mr. Martel, an openly gay man and LGBT activist, is the author of the upcoming book, In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy, to be released on February 21, the opening day of a major Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse.

In the new exposé, Martel accuses the Catholic Church of hypocrisy for opposing gay marriage and adoption when so many of its own clerics are active homosexuals.

In addressing the relationship between the pope and then-cardinal McCarrick, Martel seems to confirm an August 25, 2018 report from the former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who said he had informed Pope Francis of McCarrick’s crimes in 2013, shortly after the pope’s election. The pope proceeded to lift sanctions that had been imposed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI, Viganò stated, and reinstated him in a position of influence in the Vatican.

On October 7, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops confirmed allegations that Pope Benedict XVI had indeed curbed McCarrick’s activities due to concerns about his behavior.

“The former Cardinal,” wrote Cardinal Marc Ouellet, “had been requested not to travel or to make public appearances, in order to avoid new rumors about him.”

https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2019/02/17/report-pope-knew-of-mccarricks-crimes-but-considered-them-unimportant/